Airline: | Palair Macedonian Airlines |
Iata: | 3D |
Icao: | PMK |
Callsign: | PALAIR |
Founded: | 1991 |
Ceased: | September 1996 |
Fleet Size: | 3 |
Destinations: | 9 |
Headquarters: | Skopje and Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia |
Key People: | Vanja Bitoljanu |
Website: | Unknown |
Palair Macedonian Airlines was the national flag carrier of Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) operating from Skopje and Ohrid Airports.
During the fall of Yugoslavia, and the establishment of an Independent Macedonian republic in the early nineties, Palair Macedonian airlines was created.Their fleet began with a Tupolev Tu-154 but was soon followed by a leased Fokker F-28 and F-100, the planes were first in white and red, and later all red with yellow text.When the UN dropped sanctions against Yugoslavia in 1996, Yugoslav national airline JAT Yugoslav Airlines restarted operations, leading to a drastic drop in Palair's passenger numbers. Palair Macedonian ceased operations in September 1996.
On 5 March 1993, Flight 301, a Fokker F-100, crashed seconds after takeoff from Skopje runway 34 on a flight to Zurich. Investigation into the accident determined the cause of the accident to be the failure of the flight crew to have the aircraft de-iced before departure. Of the 97 people on board, 83 died.[2]